Prologuefor PA

I keep saying it wrong -- "I lost her" -- as if I had her, as if it is possible to have anybody, including my very own self.

This is how I understand the God's punishment for suicide.

I think about it, but do not dare to try.

Maybe I made it up, but once I woke up after the dreams you don't remember. I remember that it was bad, the nightmare. I felt that it so it before, that I saw it many times. But never could remember it... I couldn't sleep. Now I sleep very little, like a bird, I am afraid to see this dream again. I am tired and fall asleep, but this fear of this dream wakes me up. Maybe I became a bird.

And then came the thought -- this is how the hell looks like.

No, I said, not this, please. And this is why I didn't kill myself yet.

That is the story of SELF, but this book is about everything before it. About my second life, the twenty years in America.

Oh, how tired I am! I tired so hard to be right. Enough. I want to be wrong, because I am wrong even when I am right.

I do not want to nice anymore.

I want to be bad.

I tried to write about bad subjects and wrong topics. Now I understand why I was mad. Because it was personal!

Listen, twenty year is enough time to make your mind.

... The Last Democrat.

Americans are not known for their politicians. Not since the Revolution. And they are proud that their leaders are not diplomants or professional statemen. Clinton is no exception. In fact, he is probably one of the most educated American presidents, and defenetly a G-man, who worked only for the government his whole life.
His qualities and shortcomings are peculiary American. His abilities and his sins are not big deal. They keep saying "Character" meaning honesty, which Americans want from a politician! Very nice! They don't mind that US president wasted 8 years of the best time for the world diplomacy after the collopse of the Soviet system. They all focus on the White House soal opera, which is even more silly than the cheap thriller of the Nixon's era.

They see no big history, they have no need for it. They are not interested in the past or tomorrow. They didn't know that they were to fight nazies or their allies, the communists, the Soviets or Vietnamese and still do not understand why Nixon played the Chinese card. Everything in American policy is domestic.

The American model works only because the world is Americanized, because all are becoming little Americans; live today, die tomorrow.
In my Soviet Moscow the Klemlin liked to use big words, everything was "historical"! In my PostAmeriKa the changes took place outside of politics. The PC revolution -- and how else can we call this change -- happened because of the transfer of military technology to masses. Americans never saw a problem in arming the population. The guns, the cars, the phones, the computers.

My libertarians are right that America needs no federal government and president, but they are wrong thinking that we do have it, the government and the president. We don't. The self-governed society, which America was and still is, would even bother with the government if not for the British and the world out there. The society not interested in anything non-American got itself a "government" to do what is anti-American in principle. The Great Escape, the land for those who wish to be left alone, found itself a LEADER of the world! Europe with its centuries of religious wars is an anti-American entity with its missionism, visions, ideals. Americans ran to this continent-island to LIVE and not for any other high cause. The economic success of America is based on this attitude. Now US is forced to play historical role and all what we can do is to PLAY IT. We act as the script requires.

After my defection in Rome I declined an invitation to become an Italian citizen, because I am not Italian and I wanted to be left alone. And I came to New York. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is wrong with this new concept of citizenry. What is wrong that Americnas asked to do what they can't do. Leaders? If Americans indeed wanted to be leaders, they would stay in the countries they left trying to lead their nations. Immigrant is no leader. Americans want no leaders, they want to be masters of their own life only! That why the South lost. Americans are anti-social in the old European meaning of this term. Those three wars of the last century forced on America change it, the world and our Americans. Clinton is the New American, post-American. The boy Bill was borned into a country, where the unemloyed since the Great Depression driving cars, when the rest of the world still on bycicles. Americans work hard, because there is nothing else for them to do in this world, they came here to get away from this world and WORK FOR THEMSELVES.

Of course, he is in it for himself. He worked his butt off to become a president, he built this business with his own hands -- why should he resign? We, the baby-boomers, were borned into the world beyond the survival, the world which doesn't need us to move further, have leaders, prophets, great minds, the world is on autopilot. What do you expect us to do? That why Americans want to have fun, the word unknown in pre-postmodern times. He is enjoying the play, he likes to play president, he likes the role, it's fun. So what that Reagan played it better, he was an actor! So, where did it go wrong?

It didn't. America watched the TV trail from Washington and the virdict is "not guilty"! Lied under oath? So what? Big deal! It's just a play! Leave him alone! It's not your business!
But what do you want them, who play politicians, to do? It's their roles -- to debate, to fight each other, to oppose, to attack, to defend... Since they are not interested in Africa, they debate what "is" is! No offence, Africans should be Americans and do what Americans do, i.e. take care of themselves. Africans are not into American or Chinese problems, that is the first step in becoming Americans. If only they can debate without killing each other...

No, he is not the last Democract. American democracy arrived to its own cradle. The pomo world needs no leaders, good or bad -- and the only way to make sure that there are no bad ones is to get rid of them all. We are fine. We are safe. There is no Argamedon! Relax, enjoy and have fun.

Listen, humankind never was in real peace with itself. We earned it.

[Cuts from PostAmeriKa for the Stateless website]

Maybe I will find space in Father-Russia to write about my first life and those thirty years in the Soviet Union. I was mad there too. I came mad to America. Very mad.

And then I got better. Even my Russian ulcher disappered. I began to paint portraits, landscapes -- no more "compositions" in dark colors. I even painted the icons. I thought I got it, my life. Maybe if we wouldn't go back to Russia and Africa, I would be that happy man.

Although, I kept my diaries. First, in Russian and later in English. that is where my angry texts came from. If I wouldn't be so mad and if I could have the time to read what I write, I probably could notice that I never was a happy man. Especially since 1995, when we came back to Alaska. But even then I didn't understand that it's not the past, but the present and -- the future -- what was getting me.

You got me, PostAmeriKa! I writing this book!

I am mad again. More than ever. More than before I left Moscow.

Yes, I spent five years in agony before I made my mind.

What about this number "5" -- as if I am programmed for those five-year Soviet plans!